


Just Girly Things

by Cake and Pi (Tarrin)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarrin/pseuds/Cake%20and%20Pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>M'gann wants Artemis to help her with makeup</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Girly Things

M'gann wants her to help with makeup. Bottles and brushes are strewn over the counter before her. She stares at her face in the mirror, awkwardly trying to put on eyeliner, as she asks if she’s chosen the right colors. Artemis frowns and tells her she can’t help. Their complexions are too different for what Artemis uses to work for M'gann. She leaves before she can see the disappointment on the Martian’s face.

It’s not true, exactly, that Artemis can’t help. She goes to school in Gotham; she’s helped and been helped in covering up bruises and scars in the school bathrooms far too many times to not have some idea of what colors work best for various skin tones. But M’gann can shapeshift her bruises away. She will never have any scars she doesn’t want. For M’gann, makeup would only ever be one more way to play at being human. It would never be a tool to hide how last night’s date had gone sour, not a shield against having to sit in class with the person who had caused those bruises, not a disguise of how the razor slipped - or didn’t.

Artemis’s jaw tightens, and she stuffs her fists into her jacket pockets as she approaches the zeta tubes. She’s transferred schools now, and it’s a rich preppy school for rich preppy kids and she doesn’t fit in. But in some ways it’s just like being at Gotham North. There’s still classmates in the bathroom fixing their makeup and hiding their hurts. The brands they use are just higher quality and more expensive.

She remembers the cheap stuff her sister used to keep, back before Jade had left. Jade would let her watch as she worked on her face, and if Jade was in a very good mood, she’d even do Artemis’s face too. It would all be wiped off before their dad came home. Makeup was a vanity and useless and expensive. The only time it had an honest place in their home was on Halloween, when Jade would perform magic and turn them into Alice and the Cheshire Cat. And somehow there would be costumes - just knockoffs but still, costumes - and their dad would be home for once.

Back then haunted houses still scared Artemis. She remembers how Jade had busted some kid’s nose for making fun of her for it, moments after telling her little sister to just deal with the fear. She remembers her dad chuckling, and ruffling Jade’s hair. Back then, training with dad had been something to look forward to, if it meant breaking the noses of those who hurt her.

She knows better now, and her mouth twists as if she bit something bitter. For all her dad’s dislike of makeup, his training had taught her how to use it to hide her hurts. It is one of the few lessons she still uses, either because of her work as a superhero, or in helping her classmates get through another day.


End file.
